Bill Schuette Is From The Government. And He’s Not Here To Help

Bill Schuette Is From The Government. And He’s Not Here To Help

This post was written by AG for US

Who is Bill Schuette?

He’s the 53^rd attorney general of Michigan, elected during the Republican wave of 2010. With a warm smile and looks that would make him a natural for the role of “Politician #1” in any movie, Bill Schuette might be mistaken for being a harmless, mild-mannered bureaucrat.

Don’t be fooled.

The attorney general is supposed to be the lawyer for all 10 million citizens of Michigan. But Bill Schuette doesn’t see things that way. He’s a lifelong Republican born into the Dow Chemical fortune.

The AG makes $112,000 a year, but his 2012 income was padded by $518,000 from investments. And Schuette, who’s only 59, has $38,000 in pension income. Being a career politician pays off. The average Detroit city retiree has a $20,000 annual pension, and probably will lose it with Detroit’s bankruptcy.

Schuette was elected by cozying up to the far-right Tea Party, which has just shut down the federal government and delayed the Medicaid expansion in Michigan so 470,000 people can get health care coverage. Gov. Rick Snyder is a Republican, but his administration admits the delay is costing the state $630 million. But Schuette still opposes the Medicaid expansion, even though Michigan taxpayers are losing more than a half-billion dollars.

Bill Schuette has been the most partisan attorney general in the history of Michigan. Here’s how:

• Schuette wants to know what you’re doing in the bedroom. The AG has decided that the state has an interest in “regulating sexual relationships,” which sounds like something out of a bad sci-fi show. Schuette made that intrusive argument in a brief he filed in September defending Michigan’s ban on gay marriage.
• Schuette continued futile lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), wasting thousands of taxpayer dollars. In June 2012, the conservative U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law.
• Schuette has joined the War on Women. Even after Obamacare was upheld, he signed on to another lawsuit to fight part of the law that requires employers to cover certain preventative health care services for women. Even though 90% of Americans support contraception, Schuette wants to block women’s choices.
• Schuette has been a one-man wrecking crew against Michigan’s medical marijuana act, which passed in 2008 with the support of 63% of voters. Schuette led the campaign against the MMA to jump start his AG bid, even though he admitted to using marijuana himself. He’s since used the power of his office once to shut down dispensaries and go after patients and caregivers.
• Schuette has used taxpayer dollars to stop workers from organizing at the University of Michigan. Even though only 300 of 2,000 graduate research assistants didn’t want to be in a union, Schuette didn’t believe in majority rule – the basic principle of democracy. As AG, he successfully fought to keep the grad assistants from forming a union.

And that’s just for starters.
Bill Schuette is running for re-election next year, even though he doesn’t do his job very well. But don’t expect him to stop there. It’s no secret that he wants to be governor. Many Republicans expect him to run for president.
Those of us in Michigan know who Bill Schuette really is. It’s up to us to spread the word.